I've come to a conclusion. Pugilist... fucking SUCKS at binding things this time around. Especially if you're trying to do it via the combo attack.

Yeah, I think Pugilists got nerfed heavily from V. They do have the passive 50% to try again, and the base rates are still decent... but... they seem to need more investment now?

Gunner's binds are reliable. Highest base infliction rate and they have both passive double use chance and their force boost doubles all skills up for reduced damage (but not infliction!). And their strength makes them good at landing it.

Fake edit: Cross Counter has a higher bind rate (slightly) than Gunner can get, but only when maxed.

Re: Pugilist talk: My Pugilist is currently in a bit of a low-point, as his defense feels fairly low for a front-liner and his skill reliability is falling behind a bit. But I'm gonna hold firm and believe that once the higher-tier skills start getting filled in and I have enough skill points and TP to start getting more reliable infliction rates, he'll start pulling his weight again.

I got to the first boss, and I lost because I ran out of TP and died around turn 45.

My party is a Pugilist, Protector, and Harbinger on the front, with a Sovereign and War Mage in the rear. Is this just too damage light, or am I under-leveled?

By first boss, you mean the one in the 2nd Labyrinth (first multi-level)? My gut reaction, especially with the War Magus supporting from the back, is that there's not enough damage output on that team. Since everyone's (probably) only got Novice skills available, it feels like the Harbinger's debuffs overlap too much with the War Magus's debuffs. Then, when it comes to the War Magus's healing side, it kind of feels like overkill next to the Protector and Sovereign's defense and support. So maybe trading the War Magus out for another damage dealer could be a good idea. Just keep tabs on what each party member is doing in combat to see where more efficiency can be squeezed out of actions.

I don't think levels are as much of a concern for that party; I was able to barely clear the battle at Level 13, combining good luck with some poor decision-making, in a 15-turn combat.

I've come to a conclusion. Pugilist... fucking SUCKS at binding things this time around. Especially if you're trying to do it via the combo attack.

Yeah, I think Pugilists got nerfed heavily from V. They do have the passive 50% to try again, and the base rates are still decent... but... they seem to need more investment now?

Gunner's binds are reliable. Highest base infliction rate and they have both passive double use chance and their force boost doubles all skills up for reduced damage (but not infliction!). And their strength makes them good at landing it.

Fake edit: Cross Counter has a higher bind rate (slightly) than Gunner can get, but only when maxed.

War Magus has the best skill-rates at 85 %, but lacks the STR and LUC to outperform Gunner. Gunner can't even miss.

Greetings from Labyrinth 6. The boss of L5 is a freaking doozy, easily the most difficult in the game. I barely managed to beat it, and it was mostly thanks to one of the two union break skills available to me. L5 itself was actually pretty difficult too.

I got to the first boss, and I lost because I ran out of TP and died around turn 45.

My party is a Pugilist, Protector, and Harbinger on the front, with a Sovereign and War Mage in the rear. Is this just too damage light, or am I under-leveled?

At face value the party does have lacking damage. Neither Sovereign nor War Magus operate well from the backline when it comes to damage dealing. The War Magus' damage abilities are best suited to it being on the front line.

The good news though is that both of those classes are capable healers (Sovereign isn't as straight forward about it, plus you can't heal out of combat with their skillset). Which means you can replace either one and slot in a ranged damage dealer.

Sovereign is somewhere at the upper limit for how much HP-healing you'll ever need. It can't cure ailments or binds, but it can prevent them, and nobody else is better at getting rid of debuffs.
If you're spreading your skill-points enough, Sovereign should heal out of combat just as much as Arcanist.

If you're talking about Monarch March, yeah, I actually see that easily fitting into my skill build for my Sovereign if I bring her up to speed with my primary party.

If you're talking about sub-classing though, what would you say works best for a Sov? I know Medic is like the straight forward choice in some regards but...

Medic seems really redundant beyond out of combat healing. Honestly, I'd suggest Survivalist if that's what you want, as they have a cheap/efficient option for topping off/rezzing. And importantly, they have passive speed up for getting buffs off sooner during a turn.

If you're talking about Monarch March, yeah, I actually see that easily fitting into my skill build for my Sovereign if I bring her up to speed with my primary party.

If you're talking about sub-classing though, what would you say works best for a Sov? I know Medic is like the straight forward choice in some regards but...

Medic seems really redundant beyond out of combat healing. Honestly, I'd suggest Survivalist if that's what you want, as they have a cheap/efficient option for topping off/rezzing. And importantly, they have passive speed up for getting buffs off sooner during a turn.

Can a subclass Survivalist get the out of combat heal high enough to res too?

Now that my Adamant Guild's completed the 3rd Labyrinth, it seems like a good time to report in (Date: Emperor 21).

3rd Labyrinth

End of B2F; B3F

Wyvern dropping the party down to B3F was pretty nasty for me for two reasons. First of all, I always run with two Ariadne Threads, so that was double the monetary loss. Secondly, I went into the dungeon on an initial harvesting run, so my pack was already 3/4ths full when I got dropped in. So when I got felled by an unlucky combination of statuses in a mass Ooze encounter, I ended up restarting on the previous save to handle the harvesting run on its own (and ended up making it past the second checkpoint in Giant's Ruins).

Partnering with Shilleka was actually really useful for B3F, since her Monarch March effect made it fairly easy to exploit the damage tiles to get through the FOE puzzles. I probably could have kept her around for longer, but my pack was almost full when I made my escape and I really didn't want to risk another unfortunate game over.

Boss

I guess I'm a little bit surprised that they actually made Wyvern the boss of the labyrinth, considering its late-game nature in the previous games. Then again, with Cernunnos leaving the jungle to invade a different woodland, it makes sense. It took all of my TP, but I was able to relatively comfortably beat Wyvern at a party level of 20. But much of that also had to do with a very long head bind that gave me three free turns of full damage output.

2nd Maze (adjacent to 3rd Labyrinth)

Main exploration

After finishing B1F, I decided to make my first forays into the maze. After using a bunch of Escape strategies (and a little bit of luck) to get to the first shortcut checkpoint, I checked the Monstrous Codex and saw that there were quite a few blank spots between the end of Primitive Jungle's B1F and the Giant Sloth of Giant's Ruins. So I figured that, similar to the relationship between Small Orchard and Lush Woodlands, they didn't actually expect us to clear the Maze immediately and went back to exploring the labyrinth. Besides that, even though Giant Sloths are certainly manageable, they are still a bit of a resource slog.

Returning after completing B2F and the Main Labyrinth made the rest a lot easier, thanks in no small part the fact that there were deliberately easy encounters in place to manipulate FOE movement without needing to rely on Escape strategies. I don't really know why there weren't easy formations in the first leg of the Maze, or how I missed all of them if they were indeed present.

Boss identity

I had predicted Golem to be at the end of the Maze, and was happy to see my prediction hold true. On the other hand, I think i'm a few floors early to be taking it down. At a party level of 22, I was only able to carve it down to half health before losing all of my momentum. For now, I think it'll be on to the 4th Labyrinth, one that I'd been anticipating from looking at the world map.

If you're talking about Monarch March, yeah, I actually see that easily fitting into my skill build for my Sovereign if I bring her up to speed with my primary party.

If you're talking about sub-classing though, what would you say works best for a Sov? I know Medic is like the straight forward choice in some regards but...

Medic seems really redundant beyond out of combat healing. Honestly, I'd suggest Survivalist if that's what you want, as they have a cheap/efficient option for topping off/rezzing. And importantly, they have passive speed up for getting buffs off sooner during a turn.

Can a subclass Survivalist get the out of combat heal high enough to res too?

If you're talking about Monarch March, yeah, I actually see that easily fitting into my skill build for my Sovereign if I bring her up to speed with my primary party.

If you're talking about sub-classing though, what would you say works best for a Sov? I know Medic is like the straight forward choice in some regards but...

Me, I think there's basically four-ish kinds of things the Sovereign might find good use for. One is anything that keeps the Sovereign steady, preferably at full health and not prevented from acting. Because so long as your Sovereign is standing, the rest can lean on it. So Protector, I guess Ninja, Shaaadow Cloooak?
Incidentally, a Protector could do worse than a Sovereign-sub, because there are some "please hit me" and "I don't mind if you hit me" skills.

One is buffs. Some of Sovereign's stuff only works with Order-buffs, but they still make good use of buffs in general. Highlander has a cheap-as-sub (potentially free with Royal Lineage?) buff that targets the whole party, and with Reinforce, buffs are heals. Bloody Veil is insurance against getting ganged up on or multihit in general.
Shogun has powerful buffs, but they are for single targets.

Maybe less interesting is convenient weapon-types in case a friendly Shogun is barking commands nearby. Sovereign has a lot to do, but it can still make time for responding to commands. Maybe a katana, heavy staff or driveblade on the frontline, but the front is crowded in this game, and the more people happen to hold a bow or gun, the more worth using Shot Command becomes.
Element Bombs are good enough damage if a Sovereign is actually taking the time to attack on it's own.
Scythes are not that impressive in general, but some interesting weapons are scythes. One has a pretty good INT-skill, and Sovereign has good INT. Another one increases Force-gain.

Then there's "stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else in the party". Because Sovereign doesn't really need much. Survivalist and Farmer offer some utility for niche situations, and ranged weapons. Sovereign's LUC isn't that impressive, though, so don't expect too much from those skills.

How have you guys been handling the Two palms / One Giant slime fight? I can't do this yet - the palms wind up killing at least 1 party member even with a Guard Order / Shield from the hero?

Ooh, yeah, that's a really tricky formation. In terms of priority, it's hard to decide whether to take down the AoE palms or the potentially debilitating ooze first. I don't remember full-wiping to that combo, but I'm pretty sure I head-bound the Ooze in order to focus-fire at least one Palm. I also want to say that Hero's Mirage Sword + Zodiac's Fire Star was enough to take one down (maybe with some additional support), which was a better outcome than having to suck up two cannon barrages.

You can pick up a hot tip from a patron in the Tavern. It's useful to go there after every labyrinth floor traversed anyways, since sometimes you get hints on conditional drops. The location attendants' dialog doesn't seem to change with every floor like in most EO games, though - more along the lines of every couple of floors instead.

How have you guys been handling the Two palms / One Giant slime fight? I can't do this yet - the palms wind up killing at least 1 party member even with a Guard Order / Shield from the hero?

Ooh, yeah, that's a really tricky formation. In terms of priority, it's hard to decide whether to take down the AoE palms or the potentially debilitating ooze first. I don't remember full-wiping to that combo, but I'm pretty sure I head-bound the Ooze in order to focus-fire at least one Palm. I also want to say that Hero's Mirage Sword + Zodiac's Fire Star was enough to take one down (maybe with some additional support), which was a better outcome than having to suck up two cannon barrages.

You can pick up a hot tip from a patron in the Tavern. It's useful to go there after every labyrinth floor traversed anyways, since sometimes you get hints on conditional drops. The location attendants' dialog doesn't seem to change with every floor like in most EO games, though - more along the lines of every couple of floors instead.

Thanks - I've been skipping the bar, I've managed the conditionals so far on my own / with luck.

As for the strategy,

All my members are too slow, it seems like! Hero / Ronin / Sov / Arc / Gun. I try to setup binds, but they either go off too slow (Snare circle or gunner's shot) or don't land (Head bind on the Ooze - for some reason I missed 10x in a row!) and the Ronin hits hard, but not hard enough on one hit.

How have you guys been handling the Two palms / One Giant slime fight? I can't do this yet - the palms wind up killing at least 1 party member even with a Guard Order / Shield from the hero?

Ooh, yeah, that's a really tricky formation. In terms of priority, it's hard to decide whether to take down the AoE palms or the potentially debilitating ooze first. I don't remember full-wiping to that combo, but I'm pretty sure I head-bound the Ooze in order to focus-fire at least one Palm. I also want to say that Hero's Mirage Sword + Zodiac's Fire Star was enough to take one down (maybe with some additional support), which was a better outcome than having to suck up two cannon barrages.

All my members are too slow, it seems like! Hero / Ronin / Sov / Arc / Gun. I try to setup binds, but they either go off too slow (Snare circle or gunner's shot) or don't land (Head bind on the Ooze - for some reason I missed 10x in a row!) and the Ronin hits hard, but not hard enough on one hit.

So I guess it would be worth trying to see if the Hero and Ronin can combine forces to take down one Palm. If it works, then taking 1x damage from a single barrage is better than ~ 1.6x damage across two barrages with defense.

Dauntless Order is still pretty good, at 40 % minimum. Level 3 is 46 %, level 4 is 53 %, level 7 is 62 %, and 70 % at level 8.
Like other orders, it's pretty quick, so when you're about to die it's as good a hail Mary as any.

Wonder if the Backstab-bug is still around. Original version's Backstab's Almighty-element damage targets the resistance of an imbued element from Arms-skills or oil-items. Doesn't count for conditional drops, it won't be Fire-element, it just wants to target Fire-resistance, and that's none of your business.

Woo! Second labyrinth clear. First proper boss fight of the game (as the first labyrinth's only registers as an FOE on the map I think?)

One-shot the berserker king. Having just pushed Arm Snipe to 4 for the increased bind chance, expecting a fourth floor to raise it higher... and I found the boss room. But between a blind off my Survivalist then arm binds, I had it basically locked down hard. Setting up turns I can use Assault Drive is fun, and then I just pop Conversion the turn after and I'm at like 200% max TP with no heat, so my Imperial won't ever run out.

But then when it died... dick move game, dick move. Cernunnos was completely under control until turn 5. And then turn 10. And... well, I noticed the turn number the third time but I was already screwed. Reload from save... and smashed his face in, because it's not hard to just only use support skills or clean up the adds on those turns.

Aside from the failed Cernunnos fight, nobody died at all. So that's nice. Level 13 is probably on the higher side for clearing this, and I made sure to clear all the FOEs I'd found so far and buy lots of good armor for people, so I was very well prepared.

Up to level 15 after two bosses of XP and handing in the mission (almost... a couple people are a hair shy because of deaths making them uneven on xp).

My one-from-each-game party (Survivalist, Gunner, Sovereign, Imperial, Harbinger) is working out pretty well, I'm not really feeling the lack of a proper tank since:
A) Imperials are beefy anyways (and beefy = aggro)
B) I'm running Sovereign and Harbinger for big stat swings
C) I have a lot of control options to fuck up big moves.

Sovereign healing is fully online now, Harbinger is about 50% of the way there (I'm looking to max Endless Shroud, or at least take it up a ways, and then the rest of the build is all at the end of the tree when I can just spend a few turns of Miasma instead of removing it. Right now I need to force boost to use mass healing... but I can use either Sovereign or Harbinger boosts when I need that). I need expert skills for Survivalist to pick up their healing, and subclassing to make my Imperial a "healer" by abusing Hero's passives. Unlikely to sink anything else into Gunner healing because... I don't need regens (seriously, look at my team), and Medic Bullet already clears ailments fine at rank 1 (and I need skill points for bind skills and those delicious gunner passives).

I got to the first boss, and I lost because I ran out of TP and died around turn 45.

My party is a Pugilist, Protector, and Harbinger on the front, with a Sovereign and War Mage in the rear. Is this just too damage light, or am I under-leveled?

This answers my "Do you have to use the Hero class" question, woot.

C'mooooon USPS. A polar vortex is no excuse. Expense some sled dogs.

Hero is... a really stacked class. It's not remotely required though. Just make sure your party has sufficient defenses (often involving skills that soak damage for the party somehow, or ways to shut down an enemy before they can do their big nasty move), healing (So many choices here really - Medic and War Magus are traditional healers, Harbinger, Arcanist, and Sovereign all have significant healer type stuff in their kits), and then lots of ways to hurt things (preferably with sources of all six attributes - cut bash pierce fire ice volt). If you check all those boxes you're fine.

Alternatively, take Protector, Medic, and then whatever sounds cool and build the last three for damage and your party should work fine until postgame.

Postgame you start wanting people who can be subbed in for specific things (like clearing enemy buffs, negating elements, binds or specific ailments, etc). Can help to have a sub for ailments and binds anyways since some monsters have drops you can only get that way (and every boss has a conditional drop, but those can require planning for... they've done things like "Kill it in a single turn" before).

I'm coming around on Pugilist now. Whoever said it, you're right; they seem to require a lot more investment and specifically geared toward the single-hit bind abilities. Attempt to bind, miss, chance to strike again, bind, trigger a free stun attack, and if THAT misses, it has a chance to go again. Potentially four hits in a single turn.

Edit - (Though I still think I'd rather have a War Magus in that slot)

I got to the first boss, and I lost because I ran out of TP and died around turn 45.

My party is a Pugilist, Protector, and Harbinger on the front, with a Sovereign and War Mage in the rear. Is this just too damage light, or am I under-leveled?

This answers my "Do you have to use the Hero class" question, woot.

C'mooooon USPS. A polar vortex is no excuse. Expense some sled dogs.

Hero is... a really stacked class. It's not remotely required though. Just make sure your party has sufficient defenses (often involving skills that soak damage for the party somehow, or ways to shut down an enemy before they can do their big nasty move), healing (So many choices here really - Medic and War Magus are traditional healers, Harbinger, Arcanist, and Sovereign all have significant healer type stuff in their kits), and then lots of ways to hurt things (preferably with sources of all six attributes - cut bash pierce fire ice volt). If you check all those boxes you're fine.

Alternatively, take Protector, Medic, and then whatever sounds cool and build the last three for damage and your party should work fine until postgame.

Postgame you start wanting people who can be subbed in for specific things (like clearing enemy buffs, negating elements, binds or specific ailments, etc). Can help to have a sub for ailments and binds anyways since some monsters have drops you can only get that way (and every boss has a conditional drop, but those can require planning for... they've done things like "Kill it in a single turn" before).

I got to the first boss, and I lost because I ran out of TP and died around turn 45.

My party is a Pugilist, Protector, and Harbinger on the front, with a Sovereign and War Mage in the rear. Is this just too damage light, or am I under-leveled?

This answers my "Do you have to use the Hero class" question, woot.

C'mooooon USPS. A polar vortex is no excuse. Expense some sled dogs.

Hero is... a really stacked class. It's not remotely required though. Just make sure your party has sufficient defenses (often involving skills that soak damage for the party somehow, or ways to shut down an enemy before they can do their big nasty move), healing (So many choices here really - Medic and War Magus are traditional healers, Harbinger, Arcanist, and Sovereign all have significant healer type stuff in their kits), and then lots of ways to hurt things (preferably with sources of all six attributes - cut bash pierce fire ice volt). If you check all those boxes you're fine.

Alternatively, take Protector, Medic, and then whatever sounds cool and build the last three for damage and your party should work fine until postgame.

Postgame you start wanting people who can be subbed in for specific things (like clearing enemy buffs, negating elements, binds or specific ailments, etc). Can help to have a sub for ailments and binds anyways since some monsters have drops you can only get that way (and every boss has a conditional drop, but those can require planning for... they've done things like "Kill it in a single turn" before).

"Stacked Class?" Overpowered?

Not really OP, so much as it has good options for doing many things. It can be built for tanking, it has a couple paths to build for damage, etc.

It doesn't really overshadow other damage-dealers or other tanks, but it is a top tier damage-dealer and a top tier tank, and a functional healer, and it can do all three of those things on the same turn, or multiple times on the same turn, and sometimes does it for free.

I think they purposefully made hero pretty good at both defense and offense to make up for the fact that protector is the only tank class that was chosen to be part of the game. Now there is at least some choice in what to use in case you need damage reduction.

And I'm taking this game real slow. Just finished the second labyrinth, and my party is almost working well. I really need to get to 22 and rest to get tier 2 skills for my arcanist and sovereign. Still not sure which of them will be more offensively focused, but I'm leaning towards the arcanist. Sovereign needs too many turns spamming buffs to spend time on elemental buff+elemental bomb.

Dear lord these developers must be reveling in the schadenfreude. I thought I outsmarted them by going back and getting a guard sole...nope. Just, nope. OH! And no lower encounter rate expendables yet at this point in the game, either!